Movie Review: Elizabethtown (spoilers)

by Brandon Wainscott

GRADE:
A

So, Elizabethtown got mediocre reviews by critics. Moviegoers were more generous. One IMDB reviewer held the opinion that the professional critics have spent too much time on the coasts, that is to say, fail to appreciate the simplicity of what the movie depicts.

The movie stars the lovely, charming, ever innocent Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom as the main characters. Also on the cast are Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, and even Paula Deen. Here is the premise: Orlando Bloom's character, Drew Baylor, has just lost a billion dollars in a failed enterprise in the shoe industry. So, he goes home to kill himself. He's sat up a clever way of doing this, which I will let the reader watch. Well, then the phone rings. It's his sister. Annoyed, he asks if she can call back. She says, no. He protests. She tells him "dad is dead. He had a heart attack". Words to those effect.

Dad is from Kentucky, and he was visiting there when he died. So, Drew is sent to Kentucky to recover the body, to bring home to Oregon, I mean California, but Oregon, for cremation. Because, when he gets to Kentucky, they are set on burying him, not cremating him. This is the South, and cremation is a bit more frowned upon. But, his last will was to be cremated. Not a written will, but that's what he told his wife (Sarandon). Well, Drew goes east to Kentucky to get the body, supposedly coming from California. It's actually Oregon, but for the simple Kentuckians, it's California, which represents fast paced, fake culture. This is an enjoyable little piece of humor.

But, on the way to Kentucky, he meats a bubbly, charmingly crazy flight attendant named Claire (Kirsten Dunst). It's an almost empty flight. She says he gets a complimentary seat in first class. Tired, and naturally reflective with the matter of his father's death, he declines, and wants to sleep. Claire tells him that he needs to, because she does not want to have to run to the back just for him. He obliges. This is an understandable request. But, she does get a bit crazy. She keeps manically sitting with him, talking to him. She gives him directions to Elizabethtown. She tells him over and over which exit to take. She even draws him a map....and gives him her number (if he needs to call for help....yeah...or...well, you know...no, not sex. Seriously. This is not a movie about sex in the least. But it's not really for directions...). So, she's told him over and over how to get there.

Now, Elizabethtown is less than an hour from me, and only a Kentuckian can appreciate this next scene. He's going into downtown Louisville. I'm saying, "Where in the FUCK are you going?" Then it gets worse. He's going east on I-64. He is all the way in horse country, which is an hour and a half or so from where he was supposed to go.

But, he gets there. He is greeted with Southern love by his Kentucky paternal side of the family. It's a completely different culture for him. The people are more honest and simple. As a Kentuckian, it's not insulting or stereotyping. It really is like that. The movie does not make these people hicks. They welcome him from "California". After a day of experiencing a completely different culture, and dealing with the funeral affairs, he goes home to his nice hotel suite. He decides to call Claire. He's lonely and sad. She doesn't answer. Then his sister calls. She's begging him to come home, because their mother is in some manic fit of learning to cook, to do this, and to do that. Then, Claire calls back, and he talks to her. Then, his sort-of-girlfriend/fuck buddy (Jessica Biel) calls. She started flirting with him as soon as he became a corporate tycoon. But, now that he's lost it all...but she's not a detestable character. I like that. It keeps the move from being cliché. But, he obviously wants to talk to Claire. He goes back to his sister, trying to get off the phone, and then back to Claire, back to his fuck buddy. Finally, he gets to talk to Claire alone, and they talk for hours. They meet up. And they don't have sex. Which is good, because a sex scene that early would have likely ruined the movie. Even the later hinted sex is not at all shown. We simply see the characters the next morning. This is not a movie about sex.

All this time, mind you, he is dealing with the funeral affairs and getting to know his family. So, he is getting to know Claire and then getting to know his family. I think for critics this was too all over the place, but for me it was an example of the the literary style of sideshadowing, the intentional not using a linear plot. This style assumes that life is not linear. There is a premise, but not a storyline. This is what I like.

The romance that develops between Drew and Claire, slowly and interestingly. It doesn't rush, and I think it is an intelligent, enjoyable development. Ebert complained that Claire was a bit manic and annoying, even creepy. Perhaps, but I liked that. Drew is morose and bitter over the loss of a billion dollars, but Claire looks on life brightly, and takes it how it is. We also see this archetype in Drew's Southern side of the family. Life is slower in the South. The people are more real. That is why they keep saying he is from California, where life is fast paced and fake.

Which is why, I think, the critics did not give high ratings to the film. Ebert gave it three stars. I think the critics, as one IMDB reviewer said, have spent too much time on the coasts. The film, esoterically and symbolically, is this: money is not everything. Success is not everything. Love is. You can't live life for money. You have to be real, like Claire, and like your Southern family. If you live for fortune, you will be miserable and...kill yourself. Because, even with the death of his father, our protagonist intends to go right home and kill himself still, as if the loss of his father was not enough for the family. Completely selfishness.

I think movie critics may not always appreciate such things because they are not book readers perhaps. In literature, this would be more appreciated. But, ultimately, film and literature are the same art--the art of poetry in the Aristotelian sense. They show us life. I quite liked this movie. It was not sappy, was intelligent, deep, and charming. Dunst played the bubbly Claire perfectly (he usual type of roll) and Bloom was perfect for the morose, lost character) and Paula Dean was perfect for the loud, loving Southern aunt. She really shined here, and represented that metaphor of the South as a place more real. I give this movie an A.

Confession of an Anti-Semite

This video is from the movie Casablanca. The Nazis are singing their anthem, and the French/Allies, angry, begin singing the French national anthem, drowning out the Germans. It is a beautiful scene that stirs the heart against the Nazi cruelty and the greatness of the Ally victory. 

by Brandon Wainscott

 I now call the fallacy reductio ad Judeum, similar to the opposite fallacy reductio at Hitlerum. The former of course means "reduction to the Jews", and the latter "reduction to Hitler". For example of the latter: That Donald Trump is a Nazi for his views on immigration is stupid. His views about a wall are nowhere near what Hitler wanted. He makes this clear. He wants a wall to control simply the illegal immigration of Mexican immigrants. One may disagree, but calling it akin to Nazism is absurd. It has little intellectual substance to argue that. In fact none,

On the other end, there is reducing all the problems of the world, namely tyranny, to the Jews, who seek to control it supposedly. Now not everyone who confesses this belief wants the Jews to be killed. Most of them I would say do not. They just believe in a Jewish conspiracy. It does create a dangerous mindset, however. I of course never wanted the Jews to be destroyed. But as I said, I did have the reductio ad Judeum view.

On the other hand, I was not a racialist [1] as some like to call themselves--namely that we should take pride in our own race and keep it pure, not mixing. They say it is not racism. I think it is a scientific form of racism, as opposed to the form where rednecks lynch and say nigger every time they see a black man. That perhaps makes is worse, as it tries to justify it with intelligence, rather than mere stupidity and ignorance, Blacks have smaller brains,, so they must be stupider, they argue, some of them at least. Yes, blacks do actually have smaller brains, [2] but that does not prove anything in itself. I am not going to go about trying to understand the arguments, as it can be quite scientific. Just like in the historical science, when talking about the Civil War or the Germans in World War II, the historian must remove emotion and bias against the one side, namely the Confederates and Germans, so intellectually the issue has to be looked at form a formal scientific view in studying races because that is just intellectually honest and fair; and besides arguments should not be fallacious, even if they are true. True arguments can be fallacious.

In short, I am no longer an anti-Semite. Of course I hate using that word too much, as it gets thrown around like Marxist does on the Right. I enjoy Marx, but am far from a Marxist. But many on the Right, especially Reactionaries, love to throw around the term Marxist like Leftists do racism. One should actually read Marx. The idea that all this egalitarian class antagonism is from Marx is absurd. Marx starts from the beginning saying all problems of the suffering of the working class come from the bash of the classes against one another, to put it colloquially, but that hardly proves anything about the egalitarianism of the Left. There is a whole French Revolution and this guy named Locke! Marxism--bah. But I will touch on that in another post.

And one more thing. Everyone likes to be the devil's advocate. For the Reactionary it is Hitler, who is exaggerated by the liberals in his evil. Certainly we can lose a perspective and understanding of World War II by focusing on Hitler overmuch, but we should agree he was bad. But, having become disillusioned with the Reactionary movement, and looking into Eastern Orthodoxy, I am an advocate of Stalin. Though he killed three times as many, I think he can be defended as a devil's advocate defendant more justly. I am particularly interested in Russian Orthodoxy, and Russia. It seems that even on the Russian right, there is not the hostility to the Soviet Union as there is on the American right, and even some affection for it. I suppose Reactionaries cannot understand. Since this is about books, I may touch on that: In the Russian novel The Brothers Karamazov in "The Grand Inquisitor", Dostoevsky in his anti-Catholic, anti-Western poem of Ivan is also speaking against the Reactionaries, a Western, Catholic movement. In the novel he uses Alyosha to represent how sin should be dealt with--with calm love and little reaction. But that is another post.

Oh, and my political view. I support Bernie Sanders, am a conservative. I am not a Reactionary, except in my socialist views perhaps. There is that type of socialist whom Marx calls a Reactionary Socialist, generally a form of socialism founded by the European nobility or Reactionary middle class against the liberal bourgeoisie. There has always been a natural antagonism between the merchant class and the nobility. The nobles were wealthy by nature (though there were nobles who were poor), while the merchants had to work for it. It was the bourgeoisie (merchant class) that was behind the revolutions of France of Russia, using the lower class as their means--but it was the Jews some tell us! The nobility, trying t win the favor of the lower class, created a conservative form of socialism, one which Marx called Reactionary Socialism. However in general, I am not Reactionary. I may write on why I am not longer so. As one very conservative Orthodox friend put it: Reactionaries are usually half-autistic people who thrive on argument--hence the name Reactionary. Granted I am autistic, but it is a good point.
_______________

[1] Wiki cites a more formal definition, not giving it a negative connotation, but indifferent, but the colloquial use denotes, from what racialists have told me, a scientific form of racism--that is, that while one race is not superior, they should take pride in themselves, and not mix. Although, to a degree, some believe, it seems there is an intellectual superiority of the white race. There is a thin line between this and white supremacy, a sort of: all white supremacists are racialists, but not all racialists are white supremacists.

[2] I am not completely comfortable citing the New York Times in this matter, even if they cite scientific evidence. Better to cite directly to a formal scientific source, but that creates the problem of having to find fair, unbiased studies, and I don't want to spend time on that as I feel the issue is not that important.

Mia Farrow: Hillary is INNOCENT!

Mia Farrow says there was nothing secret in Hillary Clinton's emails--no classified stuff. 

http://twitchy.com/2016/01/30/mia-farrow-assures-everybody-that-hillary-never-emailed-anything-classified/

Hmmmm.....

Interpeting a Piece of Modern Art: "Cost of Living", by Josh Cline

 

"Cost of Living", by Josh Cline

DISCLAIMER: The image used from the January 11 volume of "The New Yorker", is used for the educational purposes of analyzing art, and is protected by the legally accepted principle of fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 . I use the specific image because I thought it captured best, in terms of angle, quality, etc., the work.

by Brandon Wainscott

Art is meant to be analyzed, not just the visual, but even literature. For example, what does Madame Defarge represent in comparison to Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities? It is light versus darkness--Lucie means light, and we are told Madame Defarge has a dark cloud that follows her. Sometimes, we may speak more than the author meant to say, or something he did not mean to say--something that was never even in his head. But nevertheless, this is good, as art is not static, but a continuum and should inspire the imagination to think, not just look.

So what does this work say? As one who has worked as a janitor, I believe I can specifically analyze it.

I will start with the camuflauged bottle. The janitor is often not seen, or not really scene--"you see, but do not see", a paraphrase of the words of Christ (Mark 8:18), as well as Sherlock Holmes.  People see him "but do not observe", as Sherlock Holmes exactly put it. The public place where you are is clean. But you do not think how it got clean. This shows a lack of gratitude, albeit not malicious, and therefore not a "sin" per se. All like cleanliness when they go to some venue, and complain if the place is not clean, even complaining about the housekeeping staff--but they don't compliment their work when the place is clean.

The dismembered body is interesting. For me, at least, it is a dehumanization. The janitor is dehumanized by his servatile position. I think the foot is interesting, perhaps speaking of how the janitor works on his feet all day. Also, why are the scrub bushes neatly lined up? I never saw that as janitor. They were, as is natural, here and there, and certainly not even, if laid in a group--the were perhaps stacked at most. But why did the artist do this? It was at least semiconscious. Does it speak of how everything has to be perfect to satisfy the bosses; that everything has to be unnaturally perfect? Scrubbers like that are laid in a manner that someone with OCD would. Is there and obsessive compulsive desire to the management, not born out of neurosis, but greed?

Also, note the face. It is that of someone worn and tired by work--the peasant. Note the woman in Van Gough's painting:

 

Vincent Van Gough, "Head of an Old Peasant Woman with White Cap "

Her face, too, is worn by hard work. It speaks my own laziness to me, and the hard work that wears down the working class--rough hands, weaker health, faster aging, and the whole emotional toil. She seems sad. "Cost of Living", by its very title, speaks of this on a social level--the emotional effects of poverty, and perhaps what are we to do about it? Another thing is that the sophisticated crowd that often visits the art museum are the same crowd that go to charity fundraisers and advocate justice for the poor, but they do not see the suffering of the people who keep that museum clean; and so, in effect, are superficial in their politics. Or at lest not as zealous as they might think themselves.

There is the head...the face...and the shoes, the shoes that have tread so many miles in hard work.

There are likely other things that could be drawn or interpreted from the sculpture, but we will leave it at this. The greatest lesson I take from it: the sin of my own laziness, and the hard work of so many, like my mother. But just as the sculpture should inspire more than a superficial observation of the mind, so the work should inspire more than a superficial admiration of the woman's virtue, like in the painting.